Innovation of the Day: BBC
The BBC embraces the dark web

Last month, the BBC made its news site available on the TOR network. Commonly known as the ‘dark web’, traffic on the TOR browser is routed across the network via multiple nodes which make it hard to locate or identify individual users. The BBC’s initiative is designed to enable people in locations where authorities block access to international news to continue to access the site. The BBC’s Arabic, Persian, Russian news sites are available, as well as the English language international edition.
You might not be publishing news to a global audience. But here are two bigger cultural insights to discuss with your team:
Factual healing. The past few years have been tough for those who hoped (us included!) that the internet would enhance trust and transparency. Instead, fake is the word most used to describe online culture as we head into 2020. Fake news. Fake followers. Fake reviews. Deepfakes. One scary stat: the Oxford Internet Institute saw evidence of social media election manipulation in 70 countries in 2019, up from 48 countries in 2018, and 28 in 2017. But the widespread desire for trust and transparency hasn’t gone anywhere. And just as technology creates new harms, it also creates new opportunities to remedy those harms. In 2020, how will you fight back against the fakes?
Change the channel. You might not expect to find a storied institution such as the BBC on the dark web! But this isn’t the first time we’ve seen the broadcaster explore new ways to reach its audience. We recently featured Beeb, its voice assistant designed to understand British regional accents. In a fragmented, rapidly evolving media landscape there will forever be endless new opportunities to reach people. New York Public Library retold classic novels via Instagram Stories. Reporters Against Borders created playlists on streaming music sites to circumvent news censorship. Which new (or unconventional) channels could you tell your stories through?
